Advice projects may have recieved notice that in February the Adjudication and Constitutional Issues Office issued guidance to all DWP offices that stated that appeals sent by fax or e mail were no longer acceptable.. This issue was raised at the Scottish Social Security Consortium. I challenged the guidance with the DWP based on previous caselaw (Commissioner Williams decision CDLA/4895/2001) accepting that faxed appeals were acceptable.

Today (3rd March 2004) the Adjudication and Constitutional Issues have confirmed that the original advice was incorrect. It said that appeals sent by fax or e mail were no longer acceptable. The advice only applies to appeals sent by email and that an appeal sent by fax is legally acceptable.

I spoke to Glasgow DBC and the manager is aware of the new guidance accepting new appeals, but did say that she would have to now ensure decision makers no the new guidance. This will be the case for all DWP offices and you may need to push buttons to get decision makers to accept faxed appeals.

Excellent work Chris. We had previously raised this with Glasgow DBC and were waiting to hear a response. Glad to hear sense has prevailed.

Pity about the email bit, though. Still, can't have everything.